The Unicode Consortium kicked off a revolution of internet proportions when it introduced the skin tone modifier to a handful of emoji in 2015. Since then, the executive body behind all our emoji (and a million other characters) has extended skin tone support to a bunch more emoji, including at least a dozen hand gestures.

But the skin tone modifier is notably missing for one particular hand-themed emoji: 🤝.

It’s a mystery that has troubled Redditors for years. Determined to get Reddit the answer it deserves, I set out on a quest to find out why that is.

“What makes